The biggest Oscar outrage -- OK, not the most important, but the one that still enrages me -- is Best Cinematography for 1989.
(I told you I was obsessive about the Academy Awards.)
The winner that year was "Glory," which is a very fine movie and an excellent-looking one to boot. But it uses conventional crane shots, dollies, etc. in covering the Civil War action.
Whereas "The Abyss" literally created entirely new technologies for shooting underwater. It was an amazing movie -- tragically ignored in its time, but since become regarded as a cult classic -- and cinematographer Mikael Salomon and his crew invented new cameras and lenses to record it.
I remember this as being the first time I watched the Oscars and was genuinely bewildered that the Academy didn't agree with me. Couldn't they see? Are they blind?
But that's the Oscars. Often, the most worthy nominee doesn't win. Sometimes they're not even recognized with a nomination. But who said life, or the movies, was fair?
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